As I mentioned above, I don’t see us running away with the division this season; in fact, I fear we risk losing further ground to the Cubs, who have added yet another live arm to their pitching ranks in Ed Reulbach. When your fourth starter is a guy who went 24-15 last season with a 1.94 ERA, as is the case with Dummy Taylor, you know you’ve got a pretty good thing going on.
Because of the Legacy Player rules, we are fairly handcuffed to do much with our staff, not that I’d really want to change it all that much anyway. Same goes with our position players for the most part, but we need to keep improving as things only get harder from here on in. So I’ll be looking to try and mould our squad with a couple key trades that help us be more competitive in the short-term and set the club up beyond this year for sustained success. Easier said than done, I know, but I have been working extra hard on this and have a few ideas I aim to implement once the season has kicked off.
To see more on our squad,
HERE is our team page. Here are the Cliff Notes.
Catchers- C Billy Maloney (L) – gets the everyday starting role to begin with and we’ll see what develops from there.
- Ossee Schreckengost (R) – will start against LHP and whenever Billy needs a rest.
Infielders- 1B Charlie Hickman (R)
- 2B Danny Murphy (R)
- 3B Harry Steinfeldt (R)
- SS Honus Wagner (R)
- Charlie Dexter (R) – will continue to be our C / IF utility backup
- Art Hoelskoetter (R) – pure cannon fodder
Outfielders- LF Fred Clarke (L)
- CF Rabbit Robinson (R)
- RF Matty McIntyre (L)
- Rip Cannell (L)
- Otis Clymer (S)
- Kid Nance (R)
Rabbit gets the nod ahead of Kid as everyday starter and I’ve switched him into CF with Matty manning RF.
Rotation- RHP Jack Chesbro
- RHP Deacon Phillippe
- RHP Frank Owen
- LHP Mike O'Neill
Concerns remain about overuse for Deacon last season, so Jack will take his turn to bear the brunt of the SP1 workload, at least to begin with. I’m looking for a smooth transition over the next few seasons as our two veteran stalwarts age out and Camnitz and Leifield are the front-runners to slot up. For now I want them to get as much experience in the pressure-cooker as possible.
Bullpen- LHP Nick Altrock
- RHP Howie Camnitz
- LHP Win Kellum
- LHP Lefty Leifield
- RHP Doc McJames
Charlie Smith hasn’t really come on as we had expected but there is a lot of interest in him from around the traps, which means that, should this well-telegraphed reshuffle I keep alluding to materialize, he will almost certainly form part of the transaction, especially given our surfeit of pitching.